About the show

The Heart of the Ark podcast is an initiative from the Office for Evangelization in the Archdiocese of Newark. We're coming to you to bring knowledge and courage as we voyage through this life as missionary disciples of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Hosted by Fr. John Gordon, Director of the Office for Evangelization and Secretary of Evangelization for the Archdiocese of Newark, and Jennifer Behnke, Associate Director of Evangelization, our aim is to help equip our listeners to better know, love and serve God.

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Episodes

  • Episode 81: Dilexit Nos in a Year - Session 27 - A New Declaration of Love

    August 16th, 2025  |  18 mins 15 secs
    beauty, catholic, church, evangelization, goodness, ministry, mission, prayer, service, truth

    At just exactly passed the midpoint of the encyclical, Pope Francis finally gets to the apparitions of the Sacred Heart to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, the Visitation nun who in 1673 through 1675 received private revelation of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Pope Francis clarifies the significance of private revelations, as well as the connection between the Sacred Heart and Jesus's Eucharistic presence.

  • Episode 80: Dilexit Nos in a Year - Session 26 - St. Francis de Sales

    August 8th, 2025  |  20 mins 7 secs
    beauty, catholic, church, evangelization, goodness, ministry, mission, prayer, service, truth

    Pope Francis dives into the spirituality of St. Francis de Sales and St. Jean Francis de Chantal, who together established the Order of the Visitation. St. Francis de Sales profound imagery of the Sacred Heart being engraved with the names of each of us to love individually and profoundly is a powerful one, which certainly laid the ground for St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, who was a professed Visitation nun.

  • Episode 79: Dilexit Nos in a Year - Session 25 - The Spread of Devotion to the Heart of Christ

    August 2nd, 2025  |  22 mins 15 secs
    beauty, catholic, church, evangelization, goodness, ministry, mission, prayer, service, truth

    Pope Francis continues in Chapter 4, paragraphs 103-113, outining major medieval saints who prefigure the modern devotion to the Sacred Heart, through mystical and prayer experioences that helped to inform and inspire deeper understanding of the love of Christ. There is something important in this notion that the Holy Spirit reveals truths over time, and that we are all inheritors of grace through the traditions of the Church as well as through our sacramental bonds.

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    Episode 78: Dilexit Nos in a Year - Session 24 - Echoes of the Word in History

    July 26th, 2025  |  19 mins 40 secs
    beauty, catholic, church, evangelization, goodness, ministry, mission, prayer, service, truth

    Pope Francis continues in Chapter 4 with presenting the ways in which our Spiritual heritage and church traditions have understood God's Love throughout the two millennia of Christendom. How saints and scholars have expressed the all consuming love of God poured out from the wounded side of Christ are the active healing power of Christ given through the Holy Spirit in the graces of the Sacraments.

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    Episode 77: Dilexit Nos in a Year - Session 23 - A God who Thirsts for Love

    July 18th, 2025  |  21 mins 52 secs
    beauty, catholic, church, evangelization, goodness, ministry, mission, prayer, service, truth

    Pope Francis in Chapter 4 sets paragraphs 98 - 101, in using the prophets of the Old Testament that spoke of the love of God for His beloved people of Israel with the consolation of springs in the desert and waters flowing to satiate the thirsty.

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    Episode 76: Dilexit Nos in a Year - Session 22 - A Love that Gives Itself as Drink

    July 11th, 2025  |  19 mins 25 secs
    beauty, catholic, church, evangelization, goodness, ministry, mission, prayer, service, truth

    Pope Francis begins Chapter 4 with the scriptures of the Old Testament that foretold of the water that will satisfy the land, and bring everlasting life and abundance to the people of Israel. The prophet Ezekiel and the Psalms give us glimpses into the salvific promises of the Messiah which are intertextually related to the Gospel of John.

  • Episode 75: Dilexit Nos in a Year - Session 21 - Further Reflections and Relevance for our times (2 of 2)

    July 4th, 2025  |  21 mins 5 secs
    beauty, catholic, church, evangelization, goodness, ministry, mission, prayer, service, truth

    Pope Francis concludes Chapter 3 with the reflections of recognition that only through simple trust in the mercy and reality of love contained in the "the incarnate synthesis of the Gospel" that the words of St. Therese of the Child Jesus and St. Faustina Kowalska come to be understood.

  • Episode 74: Dilexit Nos in a Year - Session 20 - Further Reflections and Relevance for our times (1 of 2)

    June 27th, 2025  |  20 mins 34 secs
    beauty, catholic, church, evangelization, goodness, ministry, mission, prayer, service, truth

    Pope Francis concludes Chapter 3 with the reflections of Pope Pius XII and Pope Benedict XVI in addressing the ways in which in a special way the Eucharistic and scriptural aspects of the devotion to the Sacred Heart address the heresies that are still prevalent in modern society, in particular the Janeists and also certain sects that have an understanding of further public revelation, past what is Biblical.

  • Episode 73: Dilexit Nos in a Year - Session 19 - Recent teachings of the Magisterium

    June 20th, 2025  |  23 mins 52 secs
    beauty, catholic, church, evangelization, goodness, ministry, mission, prayer, service, truth

    Pope Francis starts wrapping up Chapter 3 with reflections on his recent predecessor's teachings and recommendations regarding the importance of devotion to the Sacred Heart. Tracing from Pope Leo XIII, Pius XI, and XII, Pope St. John Paul II, and Pope Benedict XVI.

  • Episode 72: Dilexit Nos in a Year - Session 18 - Trinitarian Perspectives (2 of 2)

    June 13th, 2025  |  20 mins 43 secs
    beauty, catholic, church, evangelization, goodness, ministry, mission, prayer, service, truth

    Pope Francis stresses the importance of the Trinity in Chapter 3, paragraphs 75-77, exploring the active agency of the Holy Spirit in the salvific and adoptive work accomplished through Jesus' Sacred Heart. God the Father pours out the Holy Spirit in Love to Jesus Christ and that one and the same spirit is poured into the hearts of all believers.

  • Episode 71: Dilexit Nos in a Year - Session 17- Trinitarian Perspectives (1of 2)

    June 7th, 2025  |  16 mins 35 secs
    beauty, catholic, church, evangelization, goodness, ministry, mission, prayer, service, truth

  • Episode 70: Dilexit Nos in a Year - Session 16 - A Threefold Love

    May 31st, 2025  |  24 mins 17 secs
    beauty, catholic, church, evangelization, goodness, ministry, mission, prayer, service, truth

    Pope Francis explains further in Chapter 3, the depths of the passionate love that Jesus expresses, using the ancient language of the Hebrew scriptures "Song of Songs" and how that has inspired saints including St. John of the Cross to help us throughout the church's history to re-encounter this desire of God for each of us.